


Summer Soaked

by Blessedskies_turning



Category: None - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2019-12-26 05:17:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18276566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blessedskies_turning/pseuds/Blessedskies_turning





	1. Chapter 1

The town of Greenhale was waking up.

Flowers pressed up from the ground, filling the valley with every color in mother nature’s pallet. The air buzzed with bugs, and the roads were hot to the touch, burning bear feet as they dashed across. It was the kind of joyous return to life that got the air in your lungs to catch, that whispered to stop and watch as the birds soared above.    


Greenhale was a place to rest.  Not many lived in the town, only a few hundred. And the only chain store was an independently owned Dairy Queen harbored in an old dusty parking lot scared with tire tracks from reckless teenagers. There was an antique store, that also doubled as a baked goods and shake shop. The woman who owned it was quite famous between the few hundred folks who lived in Greenhale. The Evan’s family owned the general store. They got a lot of business from passing hunters or campers. Their most interesting customer were the hippies that stopped by in the spring, loaded into their tiny cars and old trailers all headed off to the same old camp ground to raise terror. 

Nobody moved here.

They were always leaving. Greenhale wasn’t a place to return to, it wasn’t a place to settle down in, it wasn’t a place you marked in your journal, or snapped a picture of. Instead Greenhale was place you skipped over. Somewhere you passed on your way to some other amazing place, or stopped at to go pee and get a pepsi for the long drive ahead. No one remembered this place, except for those who were grown from the wide open meadows and dirt roads.

Summer was clapped into the sun soaked land. Resting in a valley, surrounded by raching hills and the mighty Mt Perish, and fenced by fragrant woods, this cluster of homes and forgotten barns held more secrets that one could count. Fields reflecting the golden caress of the sun, grass swaying in the gentle winds. The euphoric skies. The black bodies dotting the cow fields. The winding roads that begged for the bite of adolescent tires. It was a faded and spotty vintage photo of life spent basking in browning rays, of pressing your lips to warm sun burnt skin, of wet feet squashing in damp grass, the aftertaste of watermelon and iced tea, of fires in a vast wide open fields and the feeling of sweat drying on your back.

So with summer approaching, the town of Greenhale and it’s residents were waking up. Stretching their arms and opening the windows to smell the sweet scents of their small valley and all the hidden things nestled too deep for wandering eyes.


	2. !

There was something about Jackson Summers death that scared Virginia Lockheart. She’d thought about it a lot since the news broke.  The information always stayed the same, his death wasn’t a mystery, but it had always seemed like that to Virginia. 

Greenhale was tiny. It had a few stores, all lined up on one street, and even fewer people living there.  It made for a nice place really, land and forest stretching every which way.  Fields of cows, and crops, cupped in a valley of sun dusted trees and winding mountain roads. 

Though not much happened there. 

There were the town movies nights, where folks would bring food and set up little carts to buy treats from.  And everyone and their aunt sat in the big grassy field, watching oldies on the screen. Or the occasional drama at school. 

Summer was the best season for the town.  Like the shoulders of the Greenhale had been carved, perfectly, for the weight of blue skies and sun drunk frogs that was the season.  The valley was painted in gold yellow orange, red. 

The teenagers liked it too, perfect for the many watering holes that littered the surrounding woods.  And the giant bonfires the sheriff would always shut down before they could get too out of hand. 

For the most part, kids made their own trouble. Inventing new kinds of games, turning over every rock, and pushing each button their eyes laid one.  You had to, with nothing happening. 

Except for Jackson Summers death. 

It was the kind of tragedy that got the town talking. So much that by the end of the first day after, everyone, knew about it. And everyone had their own story about what happened that night. 

Virginia heard a lot of these stories. They buzzed around her at school, she caught whiffs and tuffs of each embellished tale, at the store, at work, at home even. Her mother was one to talk a lot. Though most she didn’t believe. Some said, Jackson was drunk. Others, he was on drugs.  One even went as far as to say someone drove his car off the road, though it was obvious he wasn’t. 

It had happened on one of the branching roads that appeared just as lost as the person on it.  

The police report said he swerved, his red pickup turned into the ditch, no drugs, no alcohol, no sabotage. What a boring way to go.  You spend seventeen years of your life, wondering about bigger cities and new jobs, different skies and strange languages, and then one skittish deer ends it all. Your car turns. You’re left there, bleeding out. No one to hear your last words. And then it ends. 

Virginia had turned it over in her head many, many times. She hadn’t been close to the Summers boy but she’d seen him around school alot. His shiny red pickup and crooked baseball cap.  In her mind the worst part about Jackson dying was that he did it by himself.

“Jackson died alone, but he did not live alone.” Is what the sheriff said in official report the week after. Which was true.  Jackson always had someone around, his buddies, his girlfriend, his family for god sake. The town liked to joke about how close the Summers boys were. “Joined at the hip those kids.” One of the antique store’s regulars remarked. They did everything together, sports, after school activities, their girlfriends were best friends, they even had the same model of truck. One rumor said the applied to all the same colleges though that would have been ridiculous as Dalton Summers was a year younger. 

Everyone in the town adored Jackson Summers and his easy talk.

To put it simply Virginia wasn’t concerned with dying, she had no plans to any time soon, but if someone like Jackson, who had no trouble with friends, or family, or people, could die alone, then how could Virginia manage to die un-alone. Or live un-alone.


	5. Chapter 5

There was something about Jackson Summers death that scared Virginia Lockheart. She’d thought about it alot, since the news broke.  Somehow the information always stayed the same. To be honest, his death wasn’t a mystery. But somehow it felt like one to Virginia.  It had been a warm spring day, Virginia like most days after school worked a shift at the antique shop in her small town. Greenhale was tiny. It had a few stores, all lined up on one street, and even fewer people living there.

It made for a nice place really, land and forest stretching every which way.  Fields of cows, and crops, cupped in a valley of sun dusted trees and winding mountain roads. 

Not much happened there. 

There were the town movies nights, where folks would bring food and set up little carts to buy treats from.  And everyone and their aunt sat in the big grassy field, watching oldies on the screen. Or the occasional drama at school. 

Summer was the best season for the town.  It seemed to wear the cloak of golden sun like no other accessory.  Like the shoulders of the Greenhale had been carved, perfectly, exactly for the weight of blue skies and sun drunk frogs.  The valley was painted in gold yellow orange, red. The teenagers liked it too, perfect for the many watering holes that littered the surrounding woods.  And the giant bonfires the sheriff would always shut down before they could get too out of hand. 

For the most part, kids made their own trouble there. Inventing new kinds of games, turning over every rock, and pushing each button their eyes laid one. 

You had to, with nothing happening. 

Except for Jackson Summers’ death. 

It was the kind of tragedy that got the town talking. So much that by the end of the first day after, everyone, knew about it. And everyone had their own story about what happened that night. 

Virginia heard a lot of these stories. They buzzed around her at school, she caught whiffs and tuffs of each embellished tale, at the store, at work, at home even. Her mother was one to talk a lot. Though most she didn’t believe. Some said, Jackson was drunk. Others, he was on drugs.  One even went as far as to say someone drove his car off the road, though it was obvious he wasn’t. 

It had happened on one of the branching roads that appeared just as lost as the person on it.  

The police report said he swerved, his red pickup turned into the ditch, no drugs, no alcohol, no sabotage. What a boring way to go.  You spend seventeen years of your life, wondering about bigger cities and new jobs, different skies and strange languages, and then one skittish deer ends it all. Your car turns. You’re left there, bleeding out. No one hears your last words. And then it ends. 

Virginia had turned it over in her head many, many times. She hadn’t been close to the Summers boy but she’d seen him around school alot. His shiny red pickup and crooked baseball cap.  But she thought the worst part about Jackson dying was that he did it alone. 

“Jackson died alone, but he did not live alone.” Is what the sheriff said in official report the week after. Which was true.  Jackson always had someone around, his buddies, his girlfriend, his family for god sake. The town liked to joke about how close the Summers boys were. “Joined at the hip those kids.” One of the antique store’s regulars remarked. They did everything together, sports, after school activities, their girlfriends were best friends, they had the same model of truck. 

To put it simply Virginia wasn’t concerned with dying, she had no plans to any time soon, but if someone like Jackson, who had no trouble with friends, or family, or people, could die alone, then how could Virginia manage to die un-alone. Or live un-alone.


End file.
